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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29238441">The Ring is Empty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariasune/pseuds/Ariasune'>Ariasune</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Major Character Not Death, Time Loop, Time Shenanigans, Tragedy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:55:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,734</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29238441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariasune/pseuds/Ariasune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ardyn falls, daemons rise. Noctis ascends the throne, and falls all too easily.</p><p>He begins again. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Ring is Empty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Noctis is tempered by time. Forged as a sword. His life folded in on itself infinitesimally, years melted down, events recast, clarified by fire until he is brought to point. Sharp, and willing, yielding in the stubborn grasp of fate. The process leaves him white-hot, grief-burnt, deadly.</p><p>Ardyn falls, daemons rise. Noctis ascends the throne, and falls all too easily. Time folds anew, and he is five years old, strung like bowstrings quivering to an ancient tune.</p><p>He begins again. </p><p>After all, how many may dance at the tip of a blade?</p><hr/><p>He saves Luna the second time around, a desperate deed of bravery that robs Ignis of the ring in the same moment. He wears the ring against Ardyn in Altissia, and it is easier, different. The time comes, the crystal drinks Noctis in, and this time, he isn’t afraid to go; he isn’t abandoning the world to darkness. He wakes, and meets Luna with the others in Hammerhead—her wards strong against the dusk—but Gladio is not with them, dead nine years now.</p><p>It is different this time.</p><p>They fight through Insomnia, and as the sun sets, Noctis takes his throne with Luna’s hand in his. Shaking and afraid and ashamed.</p><p>It’s different this time, except it isn’t. Providence burns through him, his blood cold as ash, and he dies in Luna’s arms instead of the other way round. </p><p>It’s different this time, it always is.</p><hr/><p>Noctis doesn’t think about the third, fourth, and fifth revolutions often. They are mutilated fragments of his life, scarcely recognizable. He had been desperate then, making wild, irresponsible changes. Eventually Noctis’ carelessness and selfishness leaves Prompto—young, far too young—mangled under the wheels of some car in Insomnia.</p><p>Noctis had wanted to be his friend sooner, sooner, but he hadn't meant to startle Prompto. He hadn’t meant to scare him. The car had been quick, the accident sudden, the grief <em>different</em>.</p><p>So he stumbles through this turn in an empty haze. Nyx is the only one who makes it to the throne room beside him (Ignis falls in Altissia, Gladio in Zegnautus) but Noctis is numb. Part of himself is gone, and has been gone for years. He seats the throne, and calls his ancestors, and he cannot wait to see Prompto again.</p><p>There is always a shadow of something between revolutions, pirouettes on the point of this sword, and a glimpse at his audience. The first time it was Luna. He gave her a photograph. </p><p>This time, it is Prompto who sits at his side. Prompto who gives him back the same photograph of the four of them beside the Regalia.</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Noct whispers. “How?” Prompto doesn’t answer, and the apology is tight and aching inside Noctis, but his heart jams in his throat when he tries to confess. <em>I’m sorry</em>.</p><p>Prompto’s smile is soft and forgiving. His eyes are kind and understanding. He's everything Noct has been waiting for all this life, and Prompto holds him until he dies. Until it’s over. Until it begins.</p><hr/><p>If he takes the ring in Altissia, there is death to reckon with, and if he does not, Ignis will bear it, with its fire and its wrath (and its hate, he’s certain). Sometimes Noctis asks Ignis not to. Sometimes he asks on his father's boat, voice against the wind on their journey to Altissia. Sometimes quiet at a campsite in Duscae. Sometimes before they leave, sometimes after, sometimes when it is too late, or too soon, too much. On one memorable occasion, Noctis had screamed it just before they left; in Ignis’ face at the Citadel’s steps, Noct’s father beside them.</p><p>It never works. Sometimes he stops trying.</p><p>Mostly he asks Ignis when he begins again, feverish from the Marilith’s attack, memories of each life returned to him in the dark of stasis. He is nine lives folded into one heart, an eternity closed into one circlet, but he is eight years old, just a child. </p><p>A child, clinging to the hand of a caretaker scarcely older than he is, begging, “Please don’t, Iggy. Please don’t put the ring on this time.”</p><p>“I would never wear the Ring of the Lucii,” Ignis promises a sick boy, puzzled, and soothing.</p><p>More than a decade later, Ignis wears it anyway, and it burns his vision out everytime.</p><hr/><p>At night, the quay glitters with light from the hotel; he can hear Ignis at the bar, exchanging anecdotes with Coctura, Prompto’s airy laughter, a glossy sound on the air. Noctis sits at the dock and stares off towards Angelgard. The island is under a shroud of moonlight, and waits, patiently for its next prisoner. The water is quiet, the tide is a streak of silver on the sand. </p><p>It is peaceful, and yet, not far from here, Insomnia is falling.</p><p>But this is the first time he has let it, and his heart has turned to ashes in his chest.</p><p>The water laps at the dock, and Noctis murmurs bitterly, “Titus, Luche, Tredd, Axis, Sonitu—”</p><p>“Glaives?” Gladio is silhouetted against the glow of the restaurant, voice clear over the sound of laughter from the building. He treads in light creaks to stand next to Noctis by the edge. “You shouldn’t stray this far, Noct. No wall here, gottaworry about Daemons.”</p><p>“I’ll be alright,” Noctis looks away, and Gladio settles down to sit next to him with a tolerant exhale.</p><p>“If ya say so,” Gladio concedes, and flicks a pebble across the water, skipping it in three-four strokes. “You forgot the best of them anyway. Nyx, Crowe—”</p><p>“Crowe’s dead.”</p><p>“Huh? What are you talking about—”</p><p>“She’s dead. My father’s dead too. So’s yours. And half the city is burning by now,” Noctis bites out, jaw clenched. He turns to watch Gladio for a reaction, but finds nothing more than the steady, tawny gaze. Noctis turns away again, curling into a tight ball, and snarls achingly, “The peace negotiations were just a ruse to get into the city.”</p><p>Gladio tries to interrupt, shock tightening in his voice, “Noct, if that’s true, we need to return—”</p><p>“The Glaive betrayed my father,” Noct continues, heedless, furious, frantic, “Nyx is dying.”</p><p>“Noctis. Noct, breathe.”</p><p>“He’ll be dead by morning. The ring’s going to turn him to ashes. It’s the blood price—I’m the blood-price—” </p><p>“Noct!” Gladio’s hand fastens firm and sharp on his shoulder. Noct yanks his head up to look at him. Eyes wide. Chest stinging like he’s breathed in salt. Gladio’s amber eyes are searching, hot with concern. “Noctis, you have to breathe—” </p><p>But there’s more, so much more to say.</p><p>“And I’m here.” Noct’s voice cracks down its center. “Letting it happen.”</p><p>Letting it happen, because every step against this part of the current has led to more suffering. He saves Insomnia, and Aranea sets off a chain reaction at the Power plant, miasma choking Lestallum. He saves his father from Drautos, and Ravus guts Regis instead. He saves anyone, and Ardyn unlocks the vaults, lets daemons pour out over Lucis like a dark wine.</p><p>Is this Noctis’ calling? Save one person, forsake another. Less a scale out of balance, than an indiscriminate horror where it doesn’t matter who stands where, and whose blood pools close.</p><p>Shame and anger claw through him, and he gets to his feet. Stands and shouts across the calm waters, “I’m still here! Waiting for them all to die! What do you want from me? What more can you <em>take</em>?” </p><p>Noctis is screaming at Angelgard now, his blood molten in his throat.</p><p>Still at his side, a little startled, but careful and measured, Gladio is beside him. Breathing out, Gladio gets to his feet and places a hand on Noctis’ shoulder, with a blunt compassion that aches. Noct jerks round to stare at Gladio, and is pulled in close to an embrace that <em>hurts</em>. He goes stiff, then still, then bleeds against Gladio's strength exhaustedly. So much more to say, and all the time in Eos.</p><hr/><p>His best friend is a riddle, one that Noctis gives up trying to salvage; sometimes he throws Prompto from the train, sometimes Ardyn shoots Prompto and on one memorable occasion, Prompto shot Noctis. </p><p>That had been a brutal, ugly end; Ardyn had taken him to Gralea, presented him to the Emperor on his knees, and Iedolus—half-daemonic—had dragged Noctis to the crystal itself. Shrieked at him to compel the crystal to obey (as if he could), and when Noctis had simply turned his head in refusal, they had forced his hands against the freezing crystal. He woke in lonely darkness, grateful for Ardyn's familiar spite. </p><p>He’s tried to leave Prompto in Cartanica, but Prompto is loyal to a fault, and he follows Noctis like a dog cut from its traces. It is impossible to cast him aside. Noctis does everything he can think of, shouts and yells until his throat is raked raw, and Prompto’s blue-eyes are a burnt bright hurt. Tells him he doesn’t need him, doesn’t want him, hates him, hates him, hates him.</p><p>Noctis hates himself, and Prompto boards the train in Cartanica every time. He learns to measure his friends in absolutes, in what they would do for him again, and again like a broken sunset.</p><hr/><p>He asks Ignis not once, but twice. Once when he wakes in Altissia and again finds his friend blind. Noct sits on the bed and listens closely; the steady tap of Ignis’ cane as he imperfectly sweeps it before him, the clip of Ignis’ shoe meeting the furniture, the unsure footing. </p><p>Everytime, the rake of the Lucii burns the same, identical in its searing gouge over fine lip, his cheekbone, the curve of Ignis’ brow. As perfectly violent as each revolution before it.</p><p>He doesn’t apologize for it, not anymore; he cannot stop Iggy from saving him.</p><p>Instead he asks, “Do you believe in fate or destiny?”</p><p>Ignis’ head inclines. “You make a distinction.”</p><p>“Yes,” but not one he can articulate. Not one he understands. Destiny is light refracting on the surface above him, the halo dispersal of hope. Fate is the rushing river, the weight of water that holds him down. He curls his hands in the stiff, white sheets and cannot bear to look at his friend’s scarred face.</p><p>Noct is surprised, then, when the bed dips and Ignis sits beside him, movements careful and planned. “I believe in destiny, <em>your </em>destiny,” Ignis searches for his hand in echoing brushes of his fingertips, closing and curling around Noct’s fingertips. “The difference is destiny is the one you decide.”</p><hr/><p>Noctis asks Ignis again a decade later, with the dark sweltering around them. Ignis is no longer unsure, but steady and patient. Precision and practice in every measure of the man. Ten years always lends him such grace, so why then, can Noctis never be graceful at his ascent? Why does his path to the throne always begin with a falter? </p><p>Why Noct asks questions he already knows the answers to, he doesn’t know.</p><p>“Do you believe in destiny or fate?”</p><p>“Do I believe in…”</p><p>“In destiny,” Noct repeats, “Or fate.”</p><p>Fingertips cool, Ignis’ hand traces over Noct’s jaw. Careful, gently swipes of thumb. Delicate touches over Noct’s temple, a thumb rounding over his cheekbone, and a final, kind graze over his lips. Ignis, remembering him, seeing him, learning him.</p><p>“You want to know if we hold the future, or does it come in time,” Ignis’ voice is ash, is the spark-crack of dying embers, the snap of wood in a fire.</p><p>“And <em>if </em>it’s in my hands, are we sure it should be in mine...” Noct’s breath hitches hard inside his throat, and Ignis soothes him, hushes him. His hand curls on the nape of Noct’s neck and guides him to rest his forehead against Ignis’ shoulder.</p><p>“I am so sorry,” Ignis whispers, “For what has been done to you, and the part I have played in it.”</p><p>“I don’t—Ignis. <em>What?</em>”</p><p>“You were a good boy, and you are a good man. I’m proud to have had some part in that. You are a man—a King—who would do much for his people. Who would <em>sacrifice </em>much.” Ignis swallowed, and shame is hot under his skin, stinging against Noct’s cheek. “I am ashamed to have taught you sacrifice.”</p><p>“Iggy,” Noct’s arm wraps tight around his friend. “You didn’t…”</p><p>“At first, I did not know what it was for. Not at first. I found out in Altissia.” Ignis’ breath puffs hot against Noct’s skin, landing there like a glowing cinder. “Pryna showed me what was intended for you. What the astrals meant for you. What the crystal held for you. The future you would meet. The fate written for you. I… I wanted you to stop, I <em>tried</em>, but you have… you have always been... I am so sorry, Noct.”</p><p>“Specs, no…” He crushes Ignis closer, even as Ignis tenses and stills in his arms. Ignis does not sob, but he does gasp, a fine-pointed sound that slips between Noct’s ribs. “It’s not like that. I made my own choices.”</p><p>He had. Over and over again. In the face of choice and awareness, in the serpent circlet of his life and death, the finer points of his own mortality, Noct has always chosen to return to Insomnia.</p><p>“Destiny is the one I <em>chose,</em>” Noct insists, “Not you.”</p><p>Firmly, Ignis refuses Noct’s comfort, turns his face away and Noct sees scars. “I love you, Noct. Truly. And it has not been enough.”</p><hr/><p>Noctis becomes used to Gladio’s absences, and accustomed to Gladio’s choices; he tells himself that is why he follows Gladio to Taelspar Crag only once. The Tempering Ground is not meant for him; Gilgamesh is a thresh of anger and magic, a haunted vessel for pride; a cavernous hollow filled with honour where a man once lived.</p><p>Gilgamesh terrifies Noctis.</p><p>“What are you doing here? Where are the others?” Gladio demands. He is flushed and furious, sweat bright on his skin as Noctis braces the Engine blade against Gilgamesh’s stolen katana.</p><p>“You could say thank you!” Noctis’ sword wrenches out of his hands, sending a smarting pain through his wrists. He shouts with pain, but Gilgamesh stands still, unmoving. Eventually, the shade bows its head.</p><p>Behind him, the ground scrapes as Gladio staggers back to his feet, and steps between Noct and the Blademaster.</p><p>“You are the Chosen King,” Gilgamesh says clearly, even as its gaze pierces into Noctis, tapping into the part of him that has died and will never die. “This is not thy test, nor thy place. That awaits you within the crystal.”</p><p>“And at the point of my father’s blade,” Noctis yells back, anger twisting in his throat. This shade knows something of his future, of his past, of the pendulum swing between them: “What do you know about my future? Tell me!”</p><p>“Thy Shield came to prove himself worthy. You dishonour him with thine interference.”</p><p>“Shut up! Tell me what I am! Tell me why! Tell me how to stop this!” Noctis tries to push past Gladio, but his Shield pushes him back and away from Gilgamesh. Gladio’s arm stretches out insistently, brown eyes fierce, every line of his body decided that Gilgamesh will not come near Noct. </p><p>“Tell me!” He shouts.</p><p>The Blademaster merely nods in satisfaction, “Despite the dishonor of thy presence, he is a true Shield to thee. He is willing to die yet.”</p><p>“I don’t want him to die for me! I don’t want anyone to die!” Noctis face is hot with tears, cold with the crackle of aether around them. “I never asked for this! Tell me how to stop this!”</p><p>But Gilgamesh is no longer a man, and has not been for some time. All the pieces that make a man — joy and doubt, fear and courage, love and disdain — are melted down by the Tempering Ground. This dungeon is its burial ground. Gilgamesh is like the Lucii within the ring: reduced to the ash of their own honour, the barest impulse of duty and pride. </p><p>The ghost gives Gladio a glaive, bows to Noctis and leaves, “in Peace,” it says.</p><p>But fear and doubt roil within Noct violently. He’s trembling as he and Gladio leave Gilgamesh’s crypt. His limbs shake so harshly that he stumbles, and Gladio pulls him back to steady steps.</p><p>“Noct,” Gladio starts; worry and frustration rough in his voice, “You shouldn’t have— this was my duty.” He waits for Noctis to answer him, and in the silence, Gladio growls, “Don’t do that shit again. You hear me? Noct? I said—”</p><p>“Okay,” Noctis answers blankly, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>His Shield is still watching him closely, as if he knows he’s lying but can’t prove it. Noctis meets his gaze, challenging him to question it, and Gladio sighs. Pressed at the bridge of his nose and huffs. </p><p>Finally, Gladio just asks, "What did the Blademaster mean? When he talked about the crystal, when you… what you said. What did that mean?”</p><p>What did that mean? The question leaves an open hollow between one link and the next, the chain of Noct’s life pulled taunt around his throat. He stares at his Shield, his friend, his brother, eyes wide and liquid. “Gladio…” Noct starts, and cannot look away.</p><p>Gladio, Gilgamesh, Lucii, life by life, turn by turn, it may yet be his future and it is certainly his past.</p><p>“I died.” Gladio stares back, and Noctis’ words come out trembling. Not fear, but tired. The shake of a hand that has held a sword too long. Something he hasn’t been able to admit before. “I’m going to die again, and again, and—” Noct cuts off, finally looking away. “It’s... my duty.”</p><p>He doesn’t think Gladio understands, but Gladio’s rough, warm hand grasps against his shoulder. Squeezes and the tension buckles under Noct’s skin.</p><hr/><p>He thinks, he feels, he <em>hopes </em>that Prompto understands. It takes lifetime after lifetime, revolution after revolution on this railroad track, but Noctis finds out what happened to Prompto after Noctis threw him from the train. The freezing heat of Eusciello, the snow-fields Shiva left in Vogliupe. Prompto confesses the entire awful matter to him in sparing, bird-shared mouthfuls of water, in whispered stories hidden in Gralea's keep: sometimes Prompto is sitting beside him on the skinny mattress, sometimes Prompto is wrapped tight in his arms, and sometimes Prompto keeps his distance and won't look him in the eyes. </p><p>Sometimes there is a burn on Prompto's wrist. Sometimes there isn't. Each time, Noct presses his fingertips to Prompto's stick-thin wrist and almost cries.</p><p>This time is no different. Zegnautus is twisted fractals, and trying to navigate it is like trying to fish something sharp from the armiger and calling up empty. Noct chases down one hallway, then another. His magic snarls and twists under his skin, trapped there and impotent. Save the awful, inhuman burn in his fingerbones, in his knee, in the point of his sternum and small of his back.</p><p>He finds Prompto, he always does, somewhere different. Strapped to racks, hung by both arms, treading water in a tank, forced into small confined spaces with his limbs folded, and locked shrieking in rooms piled full of writhing, dying MTs. It's always fucked up, and everytime Noctis reaches him, he grasps onto Prompto with everything he has and <em>pulls him out</em>. </p><p>Prompto quakes and quivers and is <em>always </em>so shocked to see him. Noctis can't handle that, he just can't.</p><p>And revolution after revolution, Noctis tells Prompto the truth. That he's dying, over and over again, that he can't stop it, that he can't do it anymore but it keeps happening. Prompto listens with huge eyes, and a burn that sometimes exists on his wrist.</p><p>And every single time, Noctis asks, voice breaking as he prepares to face the crystal heart-first: "You with me?"</p><p>Every, every, <em>every</em> time Prompto says: "Ever at your side." </p><p>He hopes to Six that Prompto understands even if he never remembers.</p><hr/><p>Ardyn remembers, and thus technically understands. Technically, because Ardyn's grasp on empathy is oil slick, pitch black, a mess. Often he refuses to discuss it altogether; gives Noctis smiles and sneers and silence. But secrets don't like to be kept, and the hushed memory of his humanity prompts kindness from Ardyn. Once they sat together in a broken throne room, Insomnia laid out before them. </p><p>"You came alone this time," Ardyn notes, fingering the filigree of his coat. </p><p>Ardyn doesn't like to discuss their mutually assured destruction, much less the afterbirth, so Noctis is off-guard as he studies him. The same tired, broken smile that fragments in his eyes, the same lank hair, same generous gesture of hand. </p><p>Nothing is different this time. </p><p>"Saying goodbye seemed…" Noct feels his voice fail him. </p><p>"Pointless?" </p><p>Noctis has nothing to say, so he just looks away as Ardyn presses, "endless? Exhaustive?" </p><p>"It doesn't feel like anything," Noct whispers. "It doesn't mean anything. How could it." Noctis grits his teeth. "It's all the same. It ends the same. I couldn't face them. Not again. Not this time. It's…" he hangs his head, "this is torture, isn't it? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting it to be different." </p><p>Ardyn purses his lips, before slowly rising to his feet. "I don't think of it as torture, my dear Noctis," he helps Noct to his feet. The prelude to their duel. Death dizzying with the dance of armiger. "I prefer to think of this as living human sacrifice." </p><p>"It's sick." </p><p>"It's divine," there is no joy in Ardyn's tone. No wonder, or worship. Dull observation.</p><p>"Meaningless," Noct chokes out, grasping his father's blade tightly, "it's just… empty."</p><p>"Oh my dear one," Ardyn reaches out to cup Noct's cheek. "Our sacrifice would be worth nothing if we were no more. If we were to simply die, to destroy one another for once, and only once, lay this to rest, then all this would simply be gone, surrendered to oblivion, like a nightmare in the daylight. Frightful and foolish. No. This way our lives will mean something. This is the only way our lives mean anything."</p><p>"I don't know if I believe that to be true," Noctis whispers. </p><p>Soft with understanding, Ardyn thumbs Noct's cheek before he lets go, "oh Noct, that is because you still want to live." </p>
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